


It's Too Quiet In This Room (I Need Noise)

by slamjam



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Non-Sexual Kink, Post Ep. 160, Suicidal Ideation, and sexual kink, argument, elias: the girls are fightiiiingggg, happy-ish ending, using sex to cope poorly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21830221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slamjam/pseuds/slamjam
Summary: An argument at the end of the world (or: Martin has to use the skills he learned in therapy to stop Jon from completely self destructing)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 4
Kudos: 100





	It's Too Quiet In This Room (I Need Noise)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 3 hours no beta we die like men.  
> trigger warnings in the end notes

They fucked quite a lot considering the circumstances. Fucked was perhaps a bit of a wiggly word, as the way Jon told it, it was more about being close, touching someone as deeply as you can. “Knowing them, in the biblical sense” he had said once, before lowering his mouth onto Martin to stop him from giggling at the phrase. The most Jon really wanted to do with it was more to do with control, having Martin take over. It was Martin with his hand wrapped around Jon’s throat, following the instructions of “how to choke your partner safely” that he had saved on his phone before the wifi went down. Neither of them had anyone to send a goodbye text to anyhow, but it still paid to be safe.

“Of all the ways you could die Jon, if it were at my hands for a sex thing I would genuinely never forgive myself.” 

“You Casanova, you.” He drawled, but pulled Martin in for a kiss anyways. They were harsh things now, kisses. Jon had seemed to accept Martin’s gentleness, his kindness, before. The way he lingered over the sprouting paunch of his stomach, and the tiny liver spot on his left hand. Like it was just this side of unbearable to be adored so closely, but he could bear it when it was him. Now it was a game of how hard he could take it, how far he could go without breaking. And when Martin realized what he was doing, the way Jon was fucking him, hard and empty and painful, he stopped, disgusted. 

They didn’t talk about it, hadn’t talked in nearly two days and it was wearing on the both of them. It started with him being passive aggressive, doling out little jabs the way he had when he was first at the institute, doing stupid things, wasting bullets on passing fucking cows and a sheep when he didn’t even know how to skin one, and the internet wasn’t loading any of Martin’s fucking searches on a tutorial so he couldn’t do anything but sit there and stare daggers at him. He’d had to have a sit down, naked in the (now always cold) bath, just to stop wanting to wring his damn neck. Thank God for well water, even if it was likely contaminated with some entity or another anyhow. They were all going to be dead sooner or later, what did it matter.  
He shook his head, that’s quitter talk, one of them had to want to stay alive anyhow. One of them…he ran his hands through his hair for the hundredth time that day, the icy water had turned his fingers a mottled purple color, his thighs too. His mother had always hated that about herself, called herself spam-legs, and thunder thighs. Maybe it was lucky he wasn’t a girl, she wouldn’t have hated him for being his father but there were always other ways. Ah well, he hated his thighs too, and she didn’t even have to try at that. He snorted, and pushed himself back, bracing against the side of the bath to stand up. The towels felt crunchy, like at his nan’s, however long ago that was. Jon had stopped puttering about as much, there wasn’t any movement to be heard outside of the little cordoned off partition they passed off as a bedroom, and as he stepped beyond it, he could see him sat at a table, frowning at stacks of cards arrayed around him. 

“Thought you didn’t know how to play Solitaire?” Martin asked, grabbing a shirt off a makeshift drying rack they’d strung up by the fireplace. 

“I didn’t, but Kulja Martinelli did.” 

“I thought you were not using your eye powers for things?” 

“You seem to be thinking an awful lot of things lately” he swiveled around in his chair, a glint in his eye that Martin didn’t recognize, and for the first time since the lonely he felt a stab of fear when Jon looked at him. 

“That’s not you, Jon, I can see it. Put that stupid look away, I want to talk to you. Martin clutched the towel in his hands like a weapon.

“This is me.” Jon shot back. 

“Only you, the real you.” An Eminem verse floated around the back of his head and Martin swatted it away, already half hysterical. 

“This is the real me, Martin. I’m just using what’s at my disposal. A little of this, some of that. The world’s ended, there aren’t any real rules left anymore.” He sounded petulant, childish in a way that set Martin a little off kilter.

“Jon, would you stop being such a baby about this, I’m trying to be serious.”

“And I’m trying to be realistic. You’re not grasping the reality of this, Martin, I’m a fucking-- world destroying monster! I did all this! I ruined all of this! What’s the harm in just leaning in a little bit!” He sounded hysterical, his hand raking his hair back and Martin could see the red spots where he had been plucking at his hairline. 

“Jon” Martin breathed, but was interrupted by the other man “Don’t you Jon me, you don’t- why won’t you kill me!” 

“Because” Martin said, gentle.

“Because?“ Jon got up, stepping towards him and Martin was terrified, but calm in a detatched way. He felt some of the lonely twining around his feet, strengthening his spine. Poison, in little doses could be medicine, he thought vaguely. 

“Kill me.” Jon said, demanded really, all 5’8 of him leaning into Martin’s space and he smelled like smoke and hardwood, the way he had most of the time Martin knew him and it was intoxicating, a firm masculine hand on the back of his neck like the memory of an old kind uncle who picked him up and swung him about. 

“No” he said simply and Jon screamed through his teeth in frustration. 

“Why?”

“Jon, I’m not going to let you break yourself on me. I’m sick and tired of being used like that and I don’t- “

“Why don’t you hate me?” He asked with as much venom in his voice as Martin thought he’d ever heard and it hurt like a fucking shotgun to the chest. 

“Honestly I don’t give a fuck what you think I should feel right now, or what you want me to feel about you. I can’t hate you, is what you want to hear? Is it? I don’t give a fuck, because I love you with every piece of my stupid fucking heart even if that’s a dumb decision and it’s going to get me and everyone else killed. I love you, and I want to fix this business and go home and get a flat together and have a, a stupid amount of cats and books because I don’t think either of us would be good influences on children” he giggled, his hand waving about, a drop of water hit his cheek from his wet hair and Jon’s eyes catalogued all of it. “And I know that when you get your shit together you’re going to be really sorry about all of this, self-sabotaging bullshit. Because you’re a good man and I’ve had people who like to hurt themselves throw their bodies on me like I’m a sharp rock and it hurt and it hurt and they never said sorry, and I had to learn to go. So I’m not doing that again. I’m not putting up with it, even though I know you’ll say sorry and I know-“ his voice gave out for a moment, but he twisted his fingers deeper into the towel and kept going. “I know, you’ll be apologetic and mean it because I know you, Jon. And, if nothing else, we could probably use you to fix this whole mess. So at least stay alive for that.”

Jon watched him for a moment before sitting down. He seemed very small, and that seemed right, in the moment. Martin was breathing hard and found himself leaning back on the stone wall of the bothy, a little lightheaded. He focused himself on unwinding the towel from between his fists, it had left little fibrous imprints in his palms where the terrycloth had been pressed into his skin. Tiny loops that looked too much like worm scars for him to focus on too closely. 

“You’re right.” Jon said, his head hung between his hands. 

“I know.” Martin said, letting the room lapse back into silence for a minute before pushing back off the wall “I’m going to make dinner, could you stand for more bagged curry or should I just give up and go for the ramen.” 

Jon was silent, and Martin made the executive decision for curry. It was the shitty microwave tikka and bland enough to be an outright insult to Jon’s delicate sensibilities about Indian food. 

He’d put the container in the microwave and set the pot on for rice when Jon came shuffling over to the stove. 

“You were right. I’m-I’ve been awful and I’m. I don’t know how to be sorry enough.” He was half folded into himself, eyes flickering up and then resolutely back down to the floor every few seconds. “I seem to be doing an awful lot of apologizing to you, I don’t know why it’s so terribly hard for me to not be a giant prick.” He chuckled ruefully and Martin failed to stifle a giggle.  
“What, does it sound insincere or is it-“

“No, I’m just honestly a ten year old, continue” Martin motioned for him to keep going and he did, with the ghost of a smile on his face. 

“I-God I don’t want to hurt you, but I just keep doing it. And sometimes I think-“ he stopped, ran his hands through his hair again, “Well you heard the tape. I think maybe you would be safer far from me and I know, I know I don’t get to choose that. I just am really bad at making things stay.” 

“Things?” Martin asked, and the microwave beeped. 

“Fuck, no I didn’t mean you’re a thing I just- It’s hard to make any situation stay balanced and fine and good without me putting my foot in it and-“

“I get it, I was just being picky.” Martin smiled at him, just a little thing but he saw the way it made Jon perk up, follow him with his body. 

“Could you get the curry, I’ve got to put the rice in.” 

“Sure, sure. Have you uh, have you washed it yet?”

“Dunno if we have the water.” 

“Mmm you’re right.” Jon put the bag on the burner and ripped the top off, wrinkling his nose when the steam hit his face. “Why are you always the practical one.” 

“To be honest, therapy.” Martin sighed, and looked over at Jon, who was looking at him properly for the first time. 

“I didn’t know.” 

“It wasn’t hard to get once my mum got sick, I want to think that it was the NHS taking special pity on a sick single parent but really it was just her insistence that I get out of the house.” He tries to sound light about it, but Jon knows him better than that. It would be infuriating except that his expression isn’t one of pity, just a calm deep knowing, more like a reflection. “I stopped years ago, she wasn’t going to change and we did a bit of moving. It was easier to just stop. But it did make it easier, especially when I started working here.” 

“Huh. You actually had the management skills necessary for the job when the rest of us…” he trailed off. 

“Excepting Melanie.” Martin said, thinking about the trips to a friendly low brick building, the way she looked often a bit lighter when she left, if a bit puffy about the eyes. 

“Excepting Melanie.” Jon repeated, solemnly. 

They stood in silence, across the kitchen from each other until the rice was done. Martin fluffed it with a fork, while Jon puttered about behind him, reaching for plates and cutlery like it was an old dance, one they’d done for years. He sat, and Jon came around the other side of the tiny table. 

“Don’t think this is over, this whole conversation.” Martin said, and he could see Jon deflate. “Well I mean, for now technically it’s over because I’m tired, and you’re tired and we’re both hungry so we should eat and then go to bed, but I want to know you, Jon. It’s easy to want to…” Martin shut his eyes, hearing the words “I hate you” echo through his head millionfold, a fractal of a memory, “to want to ruin something because it’s hard. I don’t know how not to do it either, I know if I fucked up as bad as this, even if it wasn’t my own fault because it isn’t your fault. I can’t say that enough, apparently, but it isn’t. Even if, I know-“

“Yeah, I know.” Jon said. “I feel bad. Making you do all the emotional legwork.”

Martin smiled, a tiny bitter thing, only half his mouth, but it was genuine. Jon reached over and tentatively took his hand, sighing happily when Martin locked his fingers with his. 

“I’ll-for you I’ll try. I want to do better, God I want to do better, for this. For you.” He ran his thumb over the back of Martin’s hand. “I wish I could guarantee anything but you know.” He waved his hand generally “The powers that be. That doesn’t mean that I can’t- ugh. I’m still going to try, no putting this off on some mystical eye bullshit, unless it actually is some mystical eye bullshit.”

“That’s all I ask.” 

“And you’ll get it” Jon said, and then changed to a scratchy, high pitched voice “in abundance!” 

“What?” Martin said, a bit afraid Jon had truly lost it, when the other man laughed, his crooked teeth peeking out behind his teeth in a way that Martin had always found stupidly endearing and said “did I ever tell you about the time I was in Rocky Horror?” 

“No” Martin said, utterly surprised, and smiled despite himself as he saw Jon’s eyes get a familiar glint in them that meant a good story was coming on. And they talked, and the world raged, and they went to bed not entirely unhappy, which was better than they could say for most.

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings: Jon is borderline suicidal because he feels he has brought upon the apocalypse. Implied Martin body hatred. 
> 
> Title from: Blood In The Cut by K.Flay aka the horniest song I have ever heard in my entire fucking life I swear to GOD. I think it matches pretty well with Jon's self destructive tendencies here.
> 
> Yes Jon was totally in Rocky Horror, I subscribe to the "The Mechanisms was a college band and he and Basira (who is VA'd by Frank, a member of the Mechanisms) refuse to acknowledge it or each other in that sense" headcanon so I think he would be the type. If not, I think it's a bit funny. He'd make a wonderful Brad at first, but I think he'd end up being the Frank N Furter type.


End file.
